Gaming machines, such as slot machines and video poker machines, have been a cornerstone of the gaming industry for several years. EGMs, especially microprocessor-based gaming machines that store gaming programs in nonvolatile media in the EGM, advantageously provide flexibility in updating and modifying games playable on the EGM through the control of the software residing on the EGM. EGMs can be configured as clients of a server that manage the software resident on the EGM. Alternatively, the software resident on an EGM may also be updated locally such as by software and/or data stored on nonvolatile removable media, e.g. compact flash memory card, which is directly inserted into the EGM.
The ability to update the software on an EGM also gives rise to security concerns. Unauthorized changes or control of the resident software on an EGM could compromise the integrity of the wagering system. However, the convenience, reduced costs and flexibility of storing and updating gaming software resident on non-removable media, e.g. a hard drive, in an EGM makes such usage desirable. Thus, there is a need to substantially minimize, if not totally eliminate, the possibility of unauthorized control or modification of software resident on an EGM.